


Pursuit of Happiness

by bar2d2s



Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Road Trips, just guys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 23:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11497203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: Axel and Joey rob their way across the continental United States, but it's not really about the money.





	Pursuit of Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> There's about a year and a half of missing time between Rogue War and Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge where Axel is occasionally spotted in Gotham City, but is otherwise nowhere to be found. This is set during that time.

Sometimes, it’s not about the money.

They’ve hit every armored car from Gateway to Gotham on their little road trip, just to prove they can. For the first time in forever, Axel has surrendered the keys to the Trickstermobile. It’s hard to drive and steal, unless of course you’re involved in a carjacking. Besides, the giant grin on Joey’s face is totally worth it. Joey is finally starting to put some meat back on his bones after spending so much time outside of his body, the flesh beginning to feel like home again. He’s got a ways to go, though, and Axel is determined to keep them on the road until his best bud is back to feeling like a person.

So they do what they do best.

Axel can only carry so much with his skinny arms, so it’s not like they’re completely knocking over the cars. Each job has net them a cool hundred grand or so, and they blow it in the dumbest ways possible. He’s not legal to gamble in Vegas, so Axel drags Joey to every show he can think of. They see Britney twice, and she doesn’t recognize them as anything more than adoring fans. Out of respect, Axel doesn’t post the selfies anywhere until they’re out of Nevada.

Joey had a cousin in Coast City when it went up, so they stop to pay their respects, and then it’s off to Joshua Tree.

“I can see why people write about this place so much.” Joey says from his place sitting among the wild flowers. They’d gotten there at the perfect time, and it looked like half the park was in bloom. It was still a desert, but it looked alive.

“You ever hear about this guy, Gram Parsons?” Axel knew that Joey hadn’t, that he himself probably wouldn’t know the story if his mom had never told him, but it was good to ask. Joey shook his head. “He was a music guy, country mostly, but he was a big influence on way bigger bands, like the Stones. He drank and partied too much, and he died. His manager stole his body from the morgue and tried to cremate it out here, at Joshua Tree.”

“Holy shit! You screwing with me?” Axel laughed, shrugged.

“Nope. He and his manager and like, Keith Richards had made a pact that when he died, he was gonna get burned up at Joshua Tree. I think the manager was fined like a grand when he got caught.”

There was a short silence between them, the sun slowly starting to set, painting the sky and the ground red and orange. Joey coughed. “Do…do _you_  want me to steal your body and burn you somewhere?” Axel laughed again, doubling over and clutching his knees.

“You kidding?! I can’t get cremated, dude! It’s like, against my religion or something. Just leave me on the doorstep of someone I hated in life.” Secretly, Axel had always liked the idea of a sky burial. Birds eating your body, giving yourself fully back to the planet. It sounded totally hardcore. But he was too young to be really, seriously thinking about his funeral plans, so he changed subjects quickly. “You wanna bum around the area another week or so? I think Coachella starts soon. Mostly naked chicks and overpriced beer, you’ll love it.”

Joey _did_  love it, and so did Axel. The music, the crowds, the weather...he was so in his element, he even let a girl that was very obviously tripping give him her flower crown. “You’re beautiful.” She told him, clasping his cheeks in her sweaty palms before dancing off. The silk flowers scratched his ears, but he kept the crown on, anyway. He was beautiful.

Once California loses its charm, they drive up through Arizona until they reach Four Corners. The crowds there are thick, and they take turns standing in four states at once.

“Are we wanted in Utah, yet?” Axel asks, flicking through the pictures on his phone. Joey has no eye for angles, he should have asked someone else to take his picture.

“Buddy, we’re wanted everywhere.” Joey replies, cranking up the radio. The only good local station they could find only played 80s hits, but it was still fun to watch Joey kill himself trying to hit the highs in Take on Me.

Texas is weird. It’s huge, and hilly, and ungodly hot. It’s also only got a single state separating them from home, and it makes Axel feel incredibly homesick. At the same time, though, he’s not ready to go back. They splurge on a fancy hotel for once, Joey paying for the room as Axel walks up the side of the building so they’re not seen together. The very idea of the kind of jets the shower is supposed to have send a shiver of delight up his spine. He hasn’t had a wash with decent water pressure since they were in Colorado, and that was weeks ago.

Joey fills up the doorway when he comes in, and it makes Axel grin. He wasn’t exactly Tar Pit-sized, but his friend looked _much_  healthier than he had when they first got on the road. Joey returned the grin, then just as quickly began to frown. “The beds are tiny.” Axel looked down at the twin-size beneath him. Bounced a couple of times.

“Fits me fine.”

“Yeah, well some of us don’t represent the Lollipop Guild, okay?” He crosses his arms over his chest, then uncrossed them to throw Axel the room key. “I’m gonna shower.”

Which was sort of unfair! Axel had been dreaming of that shower since he first read about it earlier in the day. Joey shed like the Wolfman. He was going to ruin the whole experience. And then Joey let out a shout of surprise.

“ _Ax_! You need to come in here like, right fucking now!” If he insisted. Axel dragged his feet a bit on the way over to the bathroom, freezing in place when he spotted what Joey had called him in to see. They didn’t just have a shower.

They had a huge whirlpool hot tub, big enough for a grown man to sleep in.

“If we can’t do something with those beds, I’m staying here tonight.” Wow, great minds _did_  think alike.

As it turned out, they couldn’t push the beds together, and Axel didn’t really feel like passing out in the room alone, so they carried the TV into the bathroom and made themselves a nest in the whirlpool out of blankets and towels. Between Leno and the guy that replaced Craig Ferguson, Axel decided something.

“I’ve never been to the Alamo. You wanna go to the Alamo?” They still had literal millions in spending money wearing holes in their pockets, and the Feds seemed to think they were still in Arizona, so why not see more of Texas? Joey cocked a brow.

“I was gonna just let it lie, but what’s the deal, dude? We’ve been on the road for over two months now and before that, you were slumming in Gotham. You’re the damn Trickster, Ax, why’re you so afraid of going home?”

It was hard to explain, because Joey hadn’t _been_  there. James Jesse had beaten the crap out of him, thrown him in a dumpster, stolen his mask and shoes…and Owen hadn’t even _noticed_  until he didn’t come back to the hideout that night. No one noticed. And from what he’d heard, James and Piper had rejoined the Rogues. He’d gotten edged out by a couple of has-beens, and Cold was so pleased to have the band back together, he didn’t even try and _call_  him to see if he was okay. It hurt.

“I like being on the road.” Axel protested, scooting as far away from Joey as the tub would allow. “Never setting down roots, stealing or buying whatever I want, eating at weird local chains. Getting to see that Denny’s is just as bad in Colorado as it is in Jersey and Kansas. I can be my own man on the road, dude. No Rogues or boyfriend getting me down.” He hadn’t called Owen since before he left Gotham. “Just me and my best bud and the open highway. Like Butch and Sundance before us, except we ain’t going to Bolivia after all this is over.”

Unlike most of his references, Joey actually seemed to get that one, and he cracked a smile. “I never been compared to Paul Newman before.” Axel laughed, elbowing him in the side.

“That’s because _I’m_ Paul Newman, moron. You’re Robert Redford. Which is a hell of a bigger compliment if you ask me, so take what you can get.” He had a bank account under the name Cassidy Buchanan in the Cayman Islands, way back at the beginning of his criminal career. Long before he learned that the man he was so determined to imitate was a quitter and a jerk. Didn’t stop him from loving the classics, though.

But it looked like Joey was either willing to take his explanation for an answer, or just willing to humor him for now. Either way, he dropped the questions and just let Axel be. Before they both dropped off to sleep, however, Joey nudged him with his shoulder.

“Thanks for convincing me to go on this trip, dude. This is one of those things I’m gonna tell my kids about someday. That time me and the Trickster robbed our way across the country.” And Axel grinned, because while Joey wasn’t always the brightest star in the sky, he’d never gone out of his way to make him feel bad. Had never made him feel replaceable.

It’s not about money, or fame, or even having a story they can tell anyone who’ll listen for the next six months, once they get back to Keystone. Sometimes, it’s just about sleeping in a giant bathtub with your best friend, in an expensive hotel room paid for with stolen cash, on your way across the country.

Maybe it wasn’t the exact definition of happiness, but it was close enough to grab with both hands. Axel will take it, for now.


End file.
